Women's American ORT: Action Alert

news update

THE REPORTER

Cuba
Teen ORT
ORT Dedicates Technology Centers in Ukraine
ORT Hermelin College Dedicated to High-Tech Future

ORT Returns to Cuba

On the second floor balcony, once the women's section, of the Patronato, the recently restored synagogue of Havana's 1,200-member Jewish community, is a new computer lab with the latest technology. The Ana and Ben Dizik ORT Technology Center was dedicated on Nov. 22, 2000, in full cooperation with the local Jewish community, marking ORT's first presence in the country since 1959.

A Havana native who came to the U.S. to attend college and is now a WAO member in Palm Beach, Fla., Sarita Gantz provided the major funding for the center, which is named in memory of her parents, European emigres to Cuba in the 1920s. Ben Dizik was president of the synagogue and a leader of the Jewish community, and Ana was a member of Women's American ORT in Cuba in the 1940s. Members of the Gantz family from across the United States, along with representatives from Women's American ORT, World ORT, ORT Mexico (which was instrumental in acquiring the computers and establishing the lab), and ORT Argentina attended the dedication.

The technology center, equipped with educational, including Jewish studies, and professional software, is available to the greater Havana community twelve hours a day, six days a week, offering courses to children, teens and adults. There are now 8 classes enrolling 50 students. William Miller, an instructor at the University of Havana and the grandson of José Miller, the leader of the Jewish community of Cuba, is serving as the director of the center with the assistance of three staffers.

Teen ORT: not your grandma's ORT

Members of Generation Y, aka teens, have a greater spirit of volunteerism than their alphabetical and chronological predecessors, those cynical Gen-X slackers. Many schools have instituted community service requirements, and a study found that 75 percent of freshmen had performed such work.

Evidence of this community service bent is thriving in Coral Springs, Fla., where 50 students from two area high schools are members of Teen ORT, the youthful, coed, and non-sectarian offspring, now in its fourth year, of the Palmward Evening chapter. (The chapter counts WAO National President Pepi Dunay among its members.)

No mah jongg tournaments for these Florida members. Car washes, garage sales, road rallies, holiday giftwrap and a face-painting booth at a carnival are more their speed. A plan to donate books to a new library as part of WAO's "Adopt-A-Shelf" campaign is in the works. Like its mother chapter, the activities are a hybrid of the philanthropic and social. Each May, the group presents a check of the proceeds of its fund-raising activities to the chapter at its annual honoree luncheon.

"Helping people in your community makes you feel good, and I enjoy doing it," said Gabby Leon, Teen ORT vice president. At the encouragement of her friend, Co-President Marissa Reisch, Gabby joined in the fall of 1999, serving as treasurer during her first year. Current Treasurer Adam Spievak, also invited to join by his friend, Marissa, has previously engaged in community outreach activities through his temple, visiting nursing home residents.

Searching for a community service project led high school junior Beryl Oremland to found Teen ORT in 1997. Beryl's ORT connection is multi-generational. Her mom, Judy, is a past president of the Palmward Evening chapter and now serves as Teen ORT advisor. Her great-grandfather, Max Selowsky, was one of the teachers who relocated the ORT school in Berlin to Leeds, England, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. And her great-uncle, Martin, a Holocaust survivor and retired technical engineer, was trained in ORT's technical engineering program in Berlin. Beryl's younger brother, Adam, followed her leadership example and served as Teen ORT co-president. Both Beryl and Adam are now in college.

The teens, imbued with the values of tzedakah (charity) and chesed (kindness), have expressed an interest in continuing their communal efforts in college and beyond.

ORT Dedicates Technology Centers in Ukraine

When the ORT Lyceum in Kiev officially opened in September, it signified a major acceleration of Jewish education and community life in the former Soviet Union. The new school, which offers the most up-to-date facilities and technological curricula, currently serves nearly 200 students and can accommodate up to 250. It falls under the banner of ORT's "Regeneration 2000," a program launched last spring combining Jewish studies with the latest in computer and Internet technology to attract young Jews in the former Soviet Union. The concern, in the words of Regeneration 2000 funder Milton Gralla, is "educate or evaporate." If the current generation of young Jews does not learn about their Judaism, Judaism may cease to exist in the former Soviet Union.

National President Pepi Dunay with students in Ukraine.

Women's American ORT leaders traveled to Kiev and two other cities, with other participants in the World ORT International Mission to Ukraine, to attend the dedications of the new school as well as several ORT Technology Centers, computer facilities housed in existing Jewish day schools run by other organizations. The ceremonies were attended by representatives of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and the local municipality, the regional governor and representatives of the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine.

Also in Kiev, an ORT computer lab, providing new equipment for 400 students, was dedicated at a yeshiva. An ORT computer facility inaugurated at the Israeli Cultural Center will serve members of the Kiev Jewish community. In Dniepropetrovsk, an ORT Technology Center was dedicated at the largest day school in the former Soviet Union, serving 650 students, and a new laboratory was opened at a teachers training seminary for young women.

Mission delegates also toured a school in the city of Zaporojeh, the site of an ORT Technology Center under construction. Once the facility is completed, ORT Technology Centers will be operating in eight cities across the former Soviet Union.

Read about the first phase of Regeneration 2000.

ORT Hermelin College Dedicated to
High-Tech Future

As Israeli-Palestinian tensions escalated elsewhere in Israel, the ORT Hermelin College of Engineering was officially inaugurated on Sunday, Oct. 22, 2000 in Netanya, a rapidly growing industrial enclave with a diverse immigrant population. The dedication was attended by an international group of ORT supporters and representatives of Israel's Ministry of Education.

The college, which is exclusively geared to training graduates, many of whom are olim (immigrants), for careers in Israel's blossoming high-tech sector, is named for David Hermelin, who passed away one month after the dedication. A businessman, philanthropist and former president of American ORT, Mr. Hermelin was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Norway in 1997.

"ORT's long experience in helping people of different backgrounds and cultures to integrate into their new society is at work," said Hermelin.

The school enrolls 650 students housed in five modern buildings, one of which was funded by Women's American ORT, and has four major departments: electronics, computers, mechanics and industrial management. The college's emphasis on technology is evidenced by its partnerships with multinational corporations. Microsoft has certified ORT Hermelin to grant an M.C.S.E. degree. Every Microsoft course graduate receives a Microsoft diploma, and students who complete five courses obtain a Microsoft System's Engineer diploma. The school also has programs offered in cooperation with Motorola, Intel, National Semiconductors and Cisco Systems.

Dedicated to educating immigrant populations, the college's specialized curricula include: a one-year preparatory class for Ethiopian olim who plan to pursue a practical engineering diploma, a computer class for Druze students held in a "satellite campus" in the Druze village of Ussafiye, and computer courses supervised by the Ministry of Labor and Welfare for unemployed adults in accounting, administration professions and design.

According to Robert Singer, director general of World ORT, the college reinforces ORT's commitment to quality vocational education for olim in Israel. "It's establishment and accomplishments are an integral part of ORT Israel's mission to broaden and strengthen Israel's social and economic power through technology education."

Regeneration 2000 -- ORT Completes Funding for Eight Technology Centers in Jewish Schools in Former Soviet Union

A major acceleration of Jewish education and community life in the former Soviet Union has been launched with ORT's "Regeneration 2000." The goal is to attract large numbers of previously neglected Jewish youth to Jewish education by combining Jewish studies with the latest in computer and Internet programs.

ORT, with major funding from Women's American ORT, has announced completion of its ambitious $1.6-million dollar project to establish technological centers in eight cities in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Tatarstan.

The centers will be located in Jewish schools to upgrade technical, academic, and Jewish education. The cities were chosen by ORT in partnership with Israel's Ministry of Education on the basis of significant Jewish population and substantial need. The Ministry of Education will provide Jewish studies curriculum and teachers.

An impressive international lineup of Jewish philanthropists was announced by ORT as financial backers pledged to fund each of the eight technology centers. Milton and Shirley Gralla of Fort Lee, N.J., contributed the lead funding for the program through Women's American ORT because of Mr. Gralla's concern that "It's educate or evaporate. If we don't educate the upcoming generation of Russian Jews, we will have lost them forever."

WAO National President Pepi Dunay with Milton Gralla (c.), lead Regeneration 2000 funder, and World ORT Deputy Director General Dr. Gideon Meyer.

With well over one million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, most deprived for generations of education and identity, demand has never been greater for new approaches to Jewish education provided by ORT, which was founded in St. Petersburg, Russia 120 years ago. Regeneration 2000 will provide technology centers containing networked multimedia computer laboratories to enrich the entire curriculum, including Jewish education, math and history, plus engineering labs to train students in electronics, robotics, electronic control systems and other areas of expertise for the high-tech job market. The computer labs' high-speed access to the Internet, via ORTnet, will link staff and students to other Jewish communities as well as to ORT's global resources worldwide.

"By installing advanced technologies, we immediately raise the schools' quality of education and prestige, making them more attractive to Jewish students who otherwise would not attend a Jewish school," said Gideon Meyer, Deputy Director General and Director of Operations for World ORT Union in London. Meyer played a major role in ORT's return to Russia in 1993 after its ousting by the Communists.

According to Evgeny Satanovsky, Chairman of the Russian Jewish Congress in Moscow, "Regeneration 2000 is the latest chapter in the fruitful partnership between ORT and local municipalities in the former Soviet Union. These eight new training centers respond to the needs of the communities by helping to build Jewish identity through technology."

Yossi Sarid, Israeli Minister of Education, said "ORT's unrivaled knowledge of delivering high-tech education, particularly in the former Soviet Union, will enable us to develop schools that will lead to young people's greater involvement in the Jewish community."

"We see Regeneration 2000 as building on Women's American ORT's role in the former Soviet Union. Just two years ago we dedicated the Milton and Shirley Gralla ORT Odessa Education Complex and the Leonard S. Kriser Technology Center," said Pepi Dunay of Boca Raton, Fla., National President of Women's American ORT. "Now we're seeing funding completed to start eight new technology centers."

With initial funding now complete, ORT will move swiftly to install the technology centers, train teachers and institute the technology-based curriculum, in concert with Jewish studies.

School Locations and Opening Dates:

Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine (Sept. 2000)
Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan (Sept. 2000)
Kharkov, Ukraine (Sept. 2000)
Kiev, Ukraine (Sept. 2000)
Kishiniev, Moldova (April 2001)
Minsk, Belarus (April 2001)
Samara, Russia (Fall 1999)
Zaporojeh, Ukraine (April 2001)

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